Step-by-step:
Open Your Comdirect Girokonto
Comdirect keeps no branches, which means no ticket queue and no German-only paperwork across a counter. The part expats miss until month four: the account is free only while you meet one of four monthly conditions, and there are three tiers to choose between on the way in.
Reviewed by Oliver Frankfurth (Bankfachwirt IHK) · Updated October 2026
Go straight to the application →Quick answer
To open a Comdirect Girokonto, prepare your passport or EU ID, your German address from the Anmeldung and about ten minutes for the online form. Choose from three models: Aktiv is free for its first 36 months, then the monthly activity conditions apply. Verification runs by video call; the free Visa debit card arrives a few days later.
Updated October 2026
From first click to card in hand
The form takes about ten minutes. Card and PIN reach your mailbox inside a week, and you never set foot in a branch.
Fill in the online application and pick your tier
Fill in the online application and pick your tier
Comdirect folds the tier choice into the same form, so settle it up front: Aktiv (free with active use), Extra at €2.90 a month, or Plus at €9.90. Type in your full name, nationality, date of birth, and the flat address on your Anmeldung, set a username and PIN, then submit. Your IBAN shows on the very next screen.
Tip: Keep a passport or EU ID, your Meldebescheinigung, an email address, and a German mobile number within reach before you open the form. Applied without an Anmeldung yet? Comdirect lets you proceed and asks for it later during the identity check. Submit a complete application as a new customer by 23 November 2026 for a €250 bonus on Aktiv, Extra, Plus or a joint account. Make 5 transactions of at least €25 in 3 months and keep the account 12 months. Consent to Commerzbank AG marketing emails at opening and keep consent until payment in month 4.
Save every confirmation email
Save every confirmation email
Four emails land right after you submit. One carries the account confirmation with your IBAN, one holds the IDnow reference number for your video check, one bundles the pre-contract paperwork, and one is the order confirmation. You need all four for the steps below.
Tip: Nothing after five minutes? Look in the spam folder. Copy the IDnow reference number somewhere safe on its own, because losing it drops you back to the start of the verification queue.
Verify your identity with IDnow VideoIdent
Verify your identity with IDnow VideoIdent
Comdirect runs identity checks by video only. There is no PostIdent option and no counter to walk into, because the bank holds no branches. Open the link from your email, or the IDnow app, and join a five-to-ten-minute call. Hold your passport or EU ID to the camera and answer the agent from your kitchen table.
Tip: Face a window rather than a lamp; daylight reads far better on camera. If your laptop microphone is weak, plug in a headset first. Poor audio sinks roughly one in ten first attempts on its own.
Switch on photoTAN
Switch on photoTAN
The morning after your identity clears, Comdirect unlocks photoTAN. Download the app, sign in with your participant number plus PIN, then scan the activation image on screen. From that point every login and every transfer needs a second factor from your phone.
Tip: Activate inside the three-hour window the unlock email gives you. Miss it and Comdirect posts a paper activation letter instead, which adds three to five idle days to the wait.
Wait for the card PIN
Wait for the card PIN
Your PIN travels by post in its own envelope, usually two or three days ahead of the card. Comdirect issues a Visa debit card rather than a Girocard, so the card you get works at millions of Visa terminals worldwide. A handful of small German shops still take Girocard only, which you can add for €0 a month on Aktiv if you often pay at bakeries or Wochenmärkte (open-air markets).
Tip: File the PIN in a password manager the day it arrives. The moment the card follows, load it into Apple Pay or Google Pay, because 3 mobile payments a month are the simplest way to keep the account free.
Activate your Visa debit card
Activate your Visa debit card
The card reaches you four to seven days after the PIN. Tap your first contactless payment, or run it through any ATM with the PIN, to switch it live. From then on it draws cash at every machine carrying the Visa sign, in Germany and abroad: 5 withdrawals a month at no charge on Aktiv, 5 on Extra, no ceiling on Plus. Each withdrawal past your allowance costs €4.90. Submit a complete application as a new customer by 23 November 2026 for a €250 bonus on Aktiv, Extra, Plus or a joint account. Make 5 transactions of at least €25 in 3 months and keep the account 12 months. Consent to Commerzbank AG marketing emails at opening and keep consent until payment in month 4.
Open Your Account Online
Since 2014 we have walked more than 10,000 expats through opening a German account. Here is the Comdirect application from first click to activated Visa card, plus the fee conditions and tier trade-offs the bank tucks into the fine print. Apply by 23 November 2026: Aktiv has no account fee or minimum income for 36 months. Add a free girocard and Visa credit card in online banking, subject to credit approval. The Visa debit card covers 5 free ATM withdrawals a month. The card offer runs for 36 months; standard terms apply afterwards. Extra and Plus keep their usual prices.
Open Your Account Online →What expats ask us after opening a Comdirect Girokonto
Which tier fits an expat: Aktiv, Extra, or Plus
Start with Aktiv. It costs nothing in any month you use the account actively, comes with the free Visa debit card, and covers 5 free ATM withdrawals a month, which is plenty for most people. Extra runs €2.90 a month and adds a Visa credit card plus 5 free withdrawals. Plus sits at €9.90 a month with unlimited free withdrawals and a travel-insurance package, worth it only if you fly often enough to lean on the cover. You can move up or down between tiers later, so nobody needs the expensive one on day one.
How to hold the account at €0 a month
The account is free every month you clear one of four conditions. The first is at least €700 landing in it, and salary, pension, and BAföG all count. Next come 3 Apple Pay or Google Pay payments, or one securities trade plus one savings-plan run in a linked Comdirect Depot. The last one covers account holders under 28 who are studying, at school, in an apprenticeship, or on an internship. Clear none and the month costs €4.90. The mobile-payment route is the one most expats lean on: 3 coffees paid from your phone over the month keep the fee off, whether or not your salary runs through the account.
Free cash: which card gets you what
Your free withdrawals sit on the Visa debit card, and they work at any machine showing the Visa sign, at home or on holiday. You get 5 a month on Aktiv, 5 on Extra, unlimited on Plus, then €4.90 for each further one. Cash Group ATMs do pay out without any monthly ceiling (around 5,000 of them, at Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, HypoVereinsbank, and Postbank). They read the girocard only, though, and Comdirect bills that card at €0 a month on Aktiv. Cheapest route when your allowance runs out: take cash at the checkout of Rewe, Penny, Aldi Süd, or Lidl while you shop, which plenty of expats never realise is an option here.
Cash deposits and the parent-bank safety net
Comdirect is a Commerzbank brand, which quietly solves the classic direct-bank headache of paying cash in. On Aktiv and Extra you pay notes in at Commerzbank ATMs 3 times a calendar year for free, then €4.90 per deposit; on Plus it stays free with no limit. The same parentage puts your balance under German statutory deposit protection up to €100,000, and Comdirect answers to BaFin and the ECB like any German retail bank.
Park your buffer in the included Tagesgeld PLUS at 3.25%
Open the Girokonto and a Tagesgeld PLUS savings account comes with it, paying 3.25% a year on instant-access money for 6 months; the currently variable 2.50% p.a. follows. Your rent buffer, your tax reserve, the few thousand you keep for emergencies: none of that earns a cent sitting in the current account. Sweep it into the Tagesgeld PLUS and move it back the day you need it. Same login, same app, same €100,000 protection.
When Comdirect is the wrong first account
Comdirect runs on self-service. Support sits on the phone and in chat, mostly in German, with limited English hours, and there is no branch to visit when a fee letter confuses you. If you are still finding your feet in German and want someone across a desk, a branch bank like Commerzbank or a Sparkasse (public savings bank) makes a calmer first account. You can switch to Comdirect once German banking feels less foreign.